Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Thursday the 10th of August.

And there's all sorts of stuff happening. I've been in touch with one of the passengers who just got back to London Heathrow.

There's a plane load of people, many of whom

are three days late, having been caught up in all kinds of kerfuffle, including the flight to nowhere

that took place on Sunday night from Johannesburg to London Heathrow. The sudden closure of Niger's airspace meant that the

plane had to turn round. There was then more confusion when a pilot, very sadly, was unwell in

South Africa, and eventually they all got back, some of them, three days and some hours late.

I'm also looking at the price rises that people are seeing. three days and some hours late.

I'm also looking at the price rises that people are seeing 26% average selling price increase according to Tui compared with 2019 before COVID.

And also compared with 2019 before we'd officially left the European Union, there were not

particularly significant cues at Dover. But if you were kind enough to listen yesterday, you

would have heard that, well, this summer they peaked at two hours, 30 minutes at the busiest

time on the busiest day. So lots of inconvenience, but also, I think

you need to look back and just remember how terrible things were in the August of 2020,

2021 and 2022. For the corresponding day, either side of today, I have been looking back just to

work out just how bad things were. And here's the headlines of the stories that I wrote.

UK will not hesitate to add France to quarantine list.

That was the assertion from, well, the then-Chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

He was saying, oh no, we've got to crack down on all of this.

And so if you're foolish enough to go to holiday to France, then, well, you know what to expect.

And soon enough, it was made one of those places where if you came back, you'd spend

14 days in self-isolation.

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